"The most common characteristic of all police states is intimidation by surveillance. Citizens know they are being watched and overheard. Their mail is being examined. Their homes can be invaded." ~ Vance Packard

RECENT COMMENTS BY Tim Hartnett

Columns by Tim Hartnett

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Supposedly, support for the 1st Amendment is up 18% over last year at this time. That’s according to a Newseum Institute poll of 1002 Americans contacted by telephone. The Institute offers no explanation of what brought on the sudden outbreak of broadmindedness. This time around 75% reportedly disagree with the statement: “The First Amendment...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, two NYPD officers killed by maniac Ismaaiyl Brinsley on December 20, didn’t stand much of a chance against a random attack on their uniforms. Likewise, the two of them couldn’t even reach room temperature before being honed into weapons in the battle to stir public rage. Patrolman’s Benevolent Association...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
How would you feel after almost burning a 19 month old baby’s face off? Can we cross heroic off the list of emotions? A Habersham County, Georgia SWAT team tossed a stun grenade into the playpen of sleeping toddler Bou Bou Phonesavanh at 3 A.M. on May 28th. The ordnance exploded inches from his face. So far the child’s medical expenses approach...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
“But I don’t like waiting in line,” Ray Barboni tells a competitor before gunning him down in Get Shorty. And after all, who does? You don’t have to be a Hollywood villain to hate your place in the queue. Slowpokes and nitwits get old quick with a crowd in your way. So it’s a rare man that grew up on the teeming island of...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
One of the few laughs in Michael Shaara’s book, The Killer Angels, comes when a Confederate prisoner tells captors his side was not fighting for slavery. They were defending their “rats.” The dumbfounded Yankees eventually figure out he really meant “rights.” But that still didn’t leave the Union troops much better off...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Things always look a lot clearer from behind the beltway curtain. It’s nothing like the haze your average American rube sees trying to watch developments along the Potomac. So Washington keeps a crew spinning round the clock to set the story straight, narrow and well off the course of the blogosphere. We call them lawyers, lobbyists, bureaucrats, PR...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
“Where’s the contempt for the common man?” ~ Montgomery Burns
As emotional trends go, hate has seen better days, in theory, anyway. The feeling is so far out of fashion they’ve made a crime out of it, which is a first for an emotion, I believe. Always make sure you are being objective before beating the be-Jesus out of anybody,...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Does anybody else ever feel phony in conversations that get preachy about the way they keep expanding the money supply? You don’t need a spreadsheet and algorithms to figure out printing the stuff up like toilet paper can’t have a good end. So it sounds kind of streetwise to see gloom and doom coming on. Secretly though, most of us know we don...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
In June 1949 when 1984 hit the bookstands, Joseph Stalin had nearly four years to live and was busy as ever waging war against his comrades. It was Uncle Joe’s second wind for massacre after racking up a toll of millions that had already knocked Hitler out of contention for greatest psycho of all time. Nothing on that kind of scale had ever gone on...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
John Kerry graduated Yale, served as a naval officer in Vietnam, became a prosecutor, was Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, spent nearly three decades in the US Senate and now is the Secretary of State, so he should be able to tell if anybody tried to pull a coup d’etat over on him. What our top diplomat saw going on in Egypt last month was something...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
It probably sounds odd to make a connection between the dilemma of US aid to Egypt and a federal lawsuit filed by the Mitchell family against the city of Henderson, Nevada on July 1st. In the one case, the foreign policy establishment is disappointed by Cairo’s struggle to reach a satisfactorily democratic solution to its governing woes. In the other...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Quiz: The phrase “one step forward and two steps back” is?
a. The title of a book by Vladimir Lenin.
b. A generous assessment of 20th Century American diplomacy.
c. A rate of progress that gets “experts” promoted and keeps “think-tanks” well-funded.
d. All of the above.
When Morsi was toppled by a military coup in Egypt...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Tony Soprano spoke out for a lot of people when he asked a school psychologist: “What constitutes a fidget?” The mob boss wasn’t buying the results of a test contrived to smoke out a condition known as ADD. His boy, AJ, was in hot water after getting caught nipping sacramental wine at the Catholic school he attended. That he was just...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
After hearing how outraged First World leaders are about US government actions recently revealed by Edward Snowden, you’d expect the boy to be a celebrity guest damn near anywhere. Instead, blatant war criminals get better welcomes in places where human dignity is supposedly a government mandate. Powerful regimes are inclined to grant each other...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
“How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.” ~ Karl Kraus
The author of the quote above was an Austrian who vocally criticized his country’s foreign policy at the highly risky period before, after and during the First World War. The way he got away with it was...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
The perpetual battle being waged against people who feel entitled to speak their own mind didn’t end when James Madison wrote the First Amendment. If the guarantees on paper in the Bill of Rights could have settled that much, the Ten Commandments would have eradicated sin. Those 45 words that describe where the fight against oppression should draw...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
For about a century now, Humpty-Dumpty has been the go-to man for fans of elaborate American foreign adventures. Unwelcome inquiries are put down with a one word incantation that blesses and immunizes government-funded schemes that are always cash cows for somebody. “Isolationist” means exactly what its users mean it to mean--no more and no...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
The Sicilian proverb that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead is something America’s ruling class might need to consider one day. That point began to jab at the ribs of the old Cosa Nostra itself in November of 1957. When dozens of bosses tried to convene at Joe Barbera’s place in Appalachian, New York townies noticed...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
In case you haven’t heard, men are not as manly as they used to be, and that’s not just because John Wayne is no longer with us. All over the Internet, ads and reports are spreading the news that testosterone levels are dropping at a rate that means we all might be shooting blanks in the not too distant future. The science explaining this trend...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Every four years the undecided American whipping boy is in for some lumps from his betters. During mid-term elections, the non-aligned generally go unscathed in the two-party turf war. Where the Commander-in-Chief is concerned though, mass movementarians are less forgiving. You’re either a Guelph or a Ghibilene. The theory is that only a dolt...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Every four years the undecided American whipping boy is in for some lumps from his betters. During mid-term elections, the non-aligned generally go unscathed in the two-party turf war. Where the Commander-in-Chief is concerned though, mass movementarians are less forgiving. You’re either a Guelph or a Ghibilene. The theory is that only a dolt...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
After hearing how outraged First World leaders are about US government actions recently revealed by Edward Snowden, you’d expect the boy to be a celebrity guest damn near anywhere. Instead, blatant war criminals get better welcomes in places where human dignity is supposedly a government mandate. Powerful regimes are inclined to grant each other...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
How would you feel after almost burning a 19 month old baby’s face off? Can we cross heroic off the list of emotions? A Habersham County, Georgia SWAT team tossed a stun grenade into the playpen of sleeping toddler Bou Bou Phonesavanh at 3 A.M. on May 28th. The ordnance exploded inches from his face. So far the child’s medical expenses approach...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
For about a century now, Humpty-Dumpty has been the go-to man for fans of elaborate American foreign adventures. Unwelcome inquiries are put down with a one word incantation that blesses and immunizes government-funded schemes that are always cash cows for somebody. “Isolationist” means exactly what its users mean it to mean--no more and no...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
The perpetual battle being waged against people who feel entitled to speak their own mind didn’t end when James Madison wrote the First Amendment. If the guarantees on paper in the Bill of Rights could have settled that much, the Ten Commandments would have eradicated sin. Those 45 words that describe where the fight against oppression should draw...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
The Sicilian proverb that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead is something America’s ruling class might need to consider one day. That point began to jab at the ribs of the old Cosa Nostra itself in November of 1957. When dozens of bosses tried to convene at Joe Barbera’s place in Appalachian, New York townies noticed...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
“How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.” ~ Karl Kraus
The author of the quote above was an Austrian who vocally criticized his country’s foreign policy at the highly risky period before, after and during the First World War. The way he got away with it was...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Tony Soprano spoke out for a lot of people when he asked a school psychologist: “What constitutes a fidget?” The mob boss wasn’t buying the results of a test contrived to smoke out a condition known as ADD. His boy, AJ, was in hot water after getting caught nipping sacramental wine at the Catholic school he attended. That he was just...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
In case you haven’t heard, men are not as manly as they used to be, and that’s not just because John Wayne is no longer with us. All over the Internet, ads and reports are spreading the news that testosterone levels are dropping at a rate that means we all might be shooting blanks in the not too distant future. The science explaining this trend...

Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, two NYPD officers killed by maniac Ismaaiyl Brinsley on December 20, didn’t stand much of a chance against a random attack on their uniforms. Likewise, the two of them couldn’t even reach room temperature before being honed into weapons in the battle to stir public rage. Patrolman’s Benevolent Association...